Cameron's brother-in-law and the toxic leasehold scandal: His family has owned some of Britain's great houses. How bitterly ironic he's being accused of preying on struggling homeownersDo you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Fac

It?S a safe bet that the Honourable William Waldorf Astor IV and his wife Lohralee (pictured) are untroubled by the belongings concerns

Frankly, it?S a safe bet that the Honourable William Waldorf Astor IV and his wife Lohralee, a toothsome former version, are untroubled by the property issues that maintain most thirtysomething parents conscious at night.

The clue?S within the name. Will, as he's known to his pals, is a member of the ludicrously wealthy and influential Astor clan, which is synonymous with grand homes, excessive-grade scandal and, of route, all that lovable cash.

When it comes to circle of relatives homes, Will and Lohralee are spoiled for preference.

Like many young couples, they and their 3 children regularly spend weekends with the grandparents, although visits decidedly do not involve cramming themselves right into a poky spare room.

His dad and mom ? The fourth Viscount Astor is, confusingly, additionally named William ? Have lots of area at their sprawling seventeenth-century pile, Ginge Manor in Oxfordshire. 

For a bit of capturing and fishing, there is William Snr?S assets at the Hebridean island of Jura, though the 19,000-acre Tarbert Estate isn't always technically owned via the Viscount however by using a enterprise registered in the tax haven of the British Virgin Islands.

Will and Lohralee personal a townhouse in a smart a part of West London, offered for £3.3 million in 2014. It?S with no trouble close to the home of Samantha Cameron, his half-sister from their mom Annabel?S in advance marriage to baronet Sir Reginald Sheffield.

That, of course, makes the thoroughly-linked Will 1/2-brother-in-regulation to Sam Cam?S husband David Cameron. One can almost believe the Bullingdon boy former PM calling him ?Bro?.

Land Registry facts endorse the younger Astors are in the enviable function of owning the West London freehold assets outright, and not using a loan.

But there is a shadow looming over this apparently charmed life.

For 38-year-vintage Will is accused of being one of the villains in a leasehold rip-off scandal that threatens to be as big and sour as the multi-billion-pound PPI mis-promoting outrage.

Samantha Cameron's half of-brother (pictured on his wedding ceremony day) has hyperlinks to firms that rake in coins by proudly owning and dealing with freeholds. He runs fund supervisor Long Harbour and is a director of HomeGround Management

Complaints about leaseholds were simmering for numerous years however at the moment are threatening to boil over and embarrass the boyish-searching aristocrat.

The alleged victims are modest households who have struggled to get a foot on the assets ladder, best to find they do no longer genuinely own their homes, due to the fact the freehold has exceeded into the fingers of wealthy, faceless buyers.

Ministers this week announced they may be drawing up plans to outlaw the sale of new homes with the hated leases. The Department for Communities and Local Government stated it is launching a session on a ban. ?It?S unacceptable that home customers are being exploited,? A spokesman stated.

A halt on destiny leasehold residence income, at the same time as welcome, wouldn?T help individuals who say their lives have already been blighted.

One of them is Katie Kendrick. Her life is, to say the least, a ways eliminated from the expanded social sphere embellished by means of William Astor.

RELATED ARTICLES

Share this text

She is a nurse who places in gruelling 13-hour shifts caring for unwell youngsters. But there's no respite when she eventually leaves the sanatorium and receives domestic to the £214,000 four-mattress house in Cheshire she shares with her husband Steve, 52, and their 5-yr-vintage son.

Instead, Katie, 37, issues over whether she will be able to have enough money to buy the freehold to her property from its cutting-edge proprietors, who are traders in a fund run via certainly one of Will Astor?S corporations.

To apprehend her plight and to comprehend why Will Astor and his ilk stand accused of exploiting domestic-customers, it's far essential to provide an explanation for how freeholds and leaseholds work. Simply placed, if you buy a freehold assets, you then very own the constructing and the land it stands on, outright. This is not the case for consumers of a leasehold belongings.

Tens of lots of residence owners which include Katie have located, to their dismay, that with a leasehold, you don?T sincerely personal your property: you simply have a contract allowing you the usage of it for a set period of years.

The actual proprietor is the person or enterprise this is the freeholder of the assets. They are entitled to demand expenses, which includes an annual rate for ?Floor hire?. These may be onerous: in a few instances, contracts were written so ground rents double each decade.

Freeholders also frequently demand fees to approve changes or upgrades to a home. On top of that, there may be steep yearly payments to a ?Managing agent?, frequently appointed with the aid of the freeholder, who is charged with searching after the constructing.

It?S been not unusual for many years for residences to be bought as leasehold, and property professionals say there is a common sense to this as there are common regions which need to be maintained.

William's mother and father ? The fourth Viscount Astor ? Have masses of space at their sprawling seventeenth-century pile, Ginge Manor (pictured) in Oxfordshire

Houses, however, have historically been freehold. That turned into until brilliant sparks inside the City awoke to the truth that if they may get their palms on freeholds to newly constructed homes, they might constitute an nearly endless coins cow.

Big stockmarket-listed building firms along with the likes of Taylor Wimpey and Bellway were short to coins in by means of selling tens of hundreds of new houses on leasehold deals.

In different words, they had been putting onto precious freeholds ? That inside the past mechanically had long past to housebuyers ? And the use of them for their personal income.

As a effect, domestic-buyers claim they are being forced to pay unfair charges which could run into thousands of pounds. And when they are trying to cease their misery through buying the freeholds, they say they're confronted with demands for extortionate sums.

Huge numbers of humans are doubtlessly laid low with leasehold rip-offs. Around 40 per cent of all new-construct homes in 2015 were leasehold, consistent with Land Registry figures, nearly double the proportion 20 years ago.

In positive elements of the usa, inclusive of inside the North West wherein nurse Katie Kendrick lives, locals file it is clearly impossible to shop for a new house with a freehold ? They may be nearly all on a rent.

Theoretically, the owner of a house can later request to shop for the freehold, but this is by no means usually honest, as we will see.

Sebastian O?Kelly, director of marketing campaign institution the Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, says: ?Between £three hundred million and £500 million of freeholds are offered on by builders each 12 months. This is a murky commercial enterprise, it's far the housebuilding industry?S dirty secret.?

Nurse Katie Kendrick, 37, is thinking about taking HomeGround to tribunal. Katie says that when she offered her property from developer Bellway in Ellesmere Port in 2014, she changed into instructed she would have the ability to shop for the freehold after two years for £2,000-£4,000 

Having seized those lucrative assets, the building companies regularly promote them directly to large buyers, which includes pension price range and City institutions ? Which is in which Will Astor enters the picture.

He is the leader government of an investment firm referred to as Long Harbour, which has offered up round one hundred sixty,000 freeholds on behalf of buyers in one of its budget, which has £1.2 billion of assets (although not all are related to freeholds). Long Harbour says the freeholds are specially on residences, no longer homes.

Mr Astor is likewise a director of HomeGround, which manages the freeholds. It raked in almost £three million of sales from freeholders and made extra than £330,000 profit in 2015, in step with its maximum latest accounts.

Katie says that once she sold her assets from developer Bellway in Ellesmere Port in 2014, she become advised she would be able to shop for the freehold after years for £2,000-£4,000.

But Bellway in the end bought a bit of freeholds, together with the only on Katie?S house, to a company known as Adriatic, where Mr Astor used to be a director. Adriatic is owned via one of the finances in his Long Harbour institution.

She approached HomeGround, where Mr Astor is a director, to buy the freehold on her house and became instructed the rate could be £thirteen,350 ? Some distance more than she will come up with the money for. 

That has considering been knocked right down to £7,680, however she says it is still too much and is considering going to a tribunal.

Unsurprisingly campaigners want to peer an give up to these leaseholds on houses, which they are saying are exploitative.

?It is as an alternative distasteful that a monied member of the Astor circle of relatives is preying on modest home- consumers,? Says Sebastian O?Kelly. ?It is only a version of what aristocrats did hundreds of years in the past, trying to make themselves wealthy through land grabs.?

Bellway sooner or later sold a bit of freeholds, including the only on Katie?S residence. She approached HomeGround, where Mr Astor is a director, to shop for the freehold on her residence and was instructed the fee might be £13,350 ? A long way extra than she will have enough money

Katie says friends and neighbours on her property are in a similar function. A Facebook institution for leaseholders has greater than 2,seven hundred individuals all expressing their anger at diverse freehold corporations.

?I had no idea the developers had been allowed to sell to a 3rd birthday party,? Katie says sincerely.

A spokesman for HomeGround said leaseholders inclusive of Katie have the proper to buy freeholds and that the enterprise may want to often informally negotiate a charge ?That may regularly keep both time and some of the professional fees?.

Since he set up Long Harbour in 2010, Will Astor has grow to be Britain?S second biggest operator inside the freehold investment control recreation.

He reduce his tooth running for 6 years for yacht-loving playboy Vincent Tchenguiz, whose Consensus Business Group is concept to be the most important operator, with a portfolio of three hundred,000 residential freeholds really worth around £4 billion.

Perhaps to a person like Will Astor, the £thirteen,350 Katie Kendrick become asked to pay for her freehold seems like a tiny sum. After all, he is the scion of dynasty envisioned within the Sunday Times Rich listing to be really worth £210 million.

The house for which they're most well-known is, of path, Cliveden, scene of the infamous Profumo affair, where the government minister first set eyes on Christine Keeler with the aid of the swimming pool.

Unsurprisingly campaigners want to look an quit to these leaseholds on houses, which they are saying are exploitative

By Astor requirements, then, the outline of Will?S brother in society mag Tatler as ?Superhot Jake the Snake with alarmingly tight trousers? Is tame, as had been the images of Jake?S wife Victoria clutching a large inflatable phallus at her hen night.

No doubt that turned into just suitable clean a laugh. Sam Cam, but, is likely to had been unamused when her stepfather ? Will?S dad ? Turned into discovered to have had an affair with a younger single woman referred to as Rachel Whetstone, now a spin health practitioner at controversial minicab employer Uber and formerly a senior government for tax-shy seek engine organisation Google.

Whetstone, many years the frolicsome Viscount?S junior, is now married to Steve Hilton, who become at one time a key member of David Cameron?S chumocracy.

Before he settled down, Eton-knowledgeable Will is stated to have kissed My Fair Lady actress Martine McCutcheon at a celebration and was briefly engaged to legal professional Nina Moaddel, both of whom are, like his wife, sleek brunettes.

For the former Lohralee Stutz, who has Swiss nationality but became brought up in suburban Vancouver, marrying Will became, if no longer precisely rags to riches, still a fairytale union.

She began out as a model aged simply 18 and worked in advert campaigns for Diesel and Lee Jeans, achieving the pinnacle of her modelling profession as Canada?S Diet Coke female.

In the Noughties, she moved to London, where she endured modelling even as reading nutrients. 

It turned into at the dance floor at Raffles nightclub at the King?S Road in Chelsea where she first caught the attention of her destiny husband. 

These days, Lohralee describes herself as a nutritionist, creator, fitness junkie, foodie, spouse, mom and poodle-obsessed animal lover. 

Already a mother of three kids, Waldorf, Allegra and Conrad, 

?No four is properly on its manner?, in keeping with one among her latest Instagram posts. While her own family life sounds little brief of idyllic, that?S no longer the case for many households suffering to address big needs to shop for the freehold on their own homes. 

The couple percentage a £three.3million London townhouse and met at Raffles nightclub on the King?S Road in Chelsea

Katie Kendrick says she is trying to the future with trepidation. 

?It?S very disturbing,? She says. ?I don?T need my domestic to be a person else?S cashpoint for the rest of my lifestyles.? 

Any ban on future income of leasehold houses is too past due for Katie. But veteran Tory Sir Peter Bottomley, the MP for West Worthing, says investors have to be compelled to provide leaseholders the right to shop for the freehold to their home at the price the investor paid, plus inflation. 

?At the moment they could ask any price they prefer. Leaseholders can visit a tribunal however that fees hundreds of pounds. 

The gravy train needs to forestall.? He stated he's considering a criticism to the opposition authorities to force investors to provide leaseholders fair terms. 

Katie?S MP, Labour?S Justin Madders, who says the scandal may be as massive as PPI misselling, invited Will Astor to meet leaseholders in his constituency. 

?For humans like him it's far simply enterprise, but it?S about humans?S real lives and feelings, now not simply cash.? 

If he does agree to meet disgruntled leaseholders, Katie Kendrick and her neighbours will tell him that a domestic is greater than just a variety of in someone else?S investment portfolio. That?S regardless of whether or not it?S a stately mansion ? Or just a humble semi.